been in progress for more than six months that the Boers saw the futility
of placing faith in foreign aid, and afterwards they fought like stronger
men.

The consuls who represented the foreign Governments at Pretoria, and
through whom the Boers made representations for peace, were an
exceptionally able body of men, and their duties were as varied as they
were arduous. The French and German consuls were busied with the care of
the vast mining interests of their countrymen, besides the partial
guardianship of the hundreds of French and German volunteers in the Boer
army. They were called upon to entertain noblemen as well as bankrupts; to
bandage wounds and to bury the dead; to find lost relatives and to care
for widows and orphans. In times of peace the duties of a consul in
Pretoria were not light, but during hostilities they were tenfold heavier.
To the American consul, Adelbert S. Hay, and his associate, John G.
Coolidge, fell more work than to all the others combined. Besides caring
for the American interests in the country, Consul Hay was charged with the
guardianship of the six thousand British prisoners of war in the city as
well as with the care of the financial interests of British citizens.
Every one of the thousands of letters to and from the prisoners was
examined in the American Consulate so that they might carry with them no
breach of neutrality; almost twenty thousand pounds, as well as tons of
luxuries, were distributed by him to the prisoners; while the letters and
cablegrams concerning the health and whereabouts of soldiers which reached
him every week were far in excess of the number of communications which
arrived at the Consulate in a year of peaceful times. Consul Hay was in
good favour with the Boer Government notwithstanding his earnest efforts
to perform his duties with regard to the British prisoners and interests,
and of the many consuls who have represented the United States in South
Africa none performed his duties more intelligently or with more credit to